The last few days have been utterly devoid of entertainment news as the industry celebrated the July 4th long weekend.
One of the few genuine stories was the cancellation of “Arkham Asylum,” the live-action “Batman” spin-off series at Max that was set within the walls of Gotham City’s infamous facility for the criminally insane.
However that story has led to some confusion online regarding just what exactly was cancelled. Part of it stems from the face the project went through multiple iterations – originally conceived as a “Gotham P.D.” series serving as a prequel to Matt Reeves’ “The Batman”.
Then it evolved into an “Arkham Asylum” project with Reeves still onboard. Many speculated it was still set within “The Batman”-universe until last year when DC co-chief James Gunn indicated the series would take place within the new DC Universe. Thus a potential “Batman: Brave and the Bold” film tie-in.
Either way the news of the project’s scrapping led some confused, wondering if the trades got it wrong and that only one incarnation was gone and the project was still alive.
Joe Otterson, who wrote the Variety piece in the first place, has now taken to Twitter to clear up the confusion and explains all versions of the show to date are out:
“To clarify, James Gunn said months ago that the Arkham Asylum show would be part of the DCU rather than Reeves’ world of The Batman. But there is now no Arkham show in active development at DC.
They could always revisit later with a new writer but the original project that Max committed to in 2020 is dead. That was the Gotham PD show that Reeves said ‘kind of evolved’ into an Arkham show. Anything developed now would be wholly new and separate from that.”
Reeves has “The Penguin” series, set within his “The Batman” universe, coming in September.
